Famous Yale School Of Music Alumni
Voting Rules
People on this list must have gone to Yale School of Music and be of some renown.
List of famous alumni from Yale School of Music, with photos when available. Prominent graduates from Yale School of Music include celebrities, politicians, business people, athletes and more. This list of distinguished Yale School of Music alumni is loosely ordered by relevance, so the most recognizable celebrities who attended Yale School of Music are at the top of the list. This directory is not just composed of graduates of this school, as some of the famous people on this list didn't necessarily earn a degree from Yale School of Music.
Alumni include Marco Beltrami, Richard Stoltzman and many additional graduates as well.
This list answers the questions “Which famous people went to Yale School of Music?” and “Which celebrities are Yale School of Music alumni?”- A prolific, Italian-born film composer who had his start with the teen horror franchise "Scream," Marco Beltrami was raised in the U.S. and underwent intensive musical training both abroad and at Yale University, composing music for symphonies and dance ensembles before entering the world of film and television scoring with projects like "Hellboy" (2004) and blockbuster sequels such as "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" (2003). Outside of his genre work, Beltrami held that contemporary film music should include a variety of musical styles and instruments, which he put to use with his critically acclaimed work on the Scandinavian film "I am Dina" (2002) before returning to mainstream films with his traditional sweeping music for "3:10 to Yuma" (2007). After writing the scores for the long-awaited sequel "Live Free or Die Hard" (2007) and the comic book actioner "Max Payne" (2008), he penned the Oscar-nominated music for "The Hurt Locker" (2009), which propelled him onto the upper tier of Hollywood composers.
- Age: 58
- Birthplace: New York, New York, USA
- Jahja Ling (Chinese: 林望傑; pinyin: Lín Wàng-jié) is a conductor, music director and pianist. From 2004 to 2017 he was the music director and conductor of the San Diego Symphony. Following his retirement in 2017 he plans to do guest conducting as well as teaching and volunteering. He is of Hokchiu Chinese descent, formerly an Indonesian citizen and is now an American citizen. He is the first and only conductor of Chinese descent to serve as music director of a major U.S. orchestra.
- Age: 73
- Birthplace: Jakarta, Indonesia
- Martin Leung (; born 1986) is a pianist. He plays classical music and is known as Video Game Pianist. He is the first pianist to gain worldwide recognition for playing video game music on the piano, both in concert venues and in online videos. Unlike many recognized musicians, Leung's breakthrough occurred almost entirely online when, on 2 July 2004, a video of him playing the Super Mario Bros. theme blindfolded debuted on eBaum's World and later appeared on numerous viral video websites. Leung makes YouTube videos, and as of 14 December 2015, has over 66,000 subscribers and 13.4 million total views. Leung has been featured in The Plain Dealer, National Public Radio, Steinway & Sons – Owners' Magazine, Nintendo Power, Slashdot, GAME Magazine, CUBE Magazine, Night Life Montreal, MTV, 1UP.com, GameSpot, and Advanced Media Network.
- Age: 38
- Richard Leslie Stoltzman (born July 12, 1942) is an American clarinetist. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent his early years in San Francisco, California, and Cincinnati, Ohio, graduating from Woodward High School in 1960. Today, Stoltzman is part of the faculty list at the New England Conservatory and Boston University. Stoltzman is perhaps the best-known clarinetist who primarily plays classical music. He has played with over 100 orchestras, as well as with many chamber groups and in many solo recitals. Stoltzman has received numerous awards and has produced an extensive discography. His virtuosity and musicianship have made him a highly sought-after concert artist. In addition to classical repertoire, Stoltzman also plays jazz. Some of his recordings, such as his album New York Counterpoint, feature both jazz and modern music. In 1983, Stoltzman commissioned composer/arranger Clare Fischer to write a symphonic work using Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn themes. The result was The Duke, Swee'pea and Me, an eleven-minute orchestral work which Stoltzman performed worldwide.
- Age: 82
- Birthplace: USA, Nebraska, Omaha
- Emma Lou Diemer (born November 24, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American composer. Diemer has written many works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, keyboard, voice, chorus, and electronic media. Diemer is a keyboard performer and over the years has given concerts of her own organ works at Washington National Cathedral, The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Grace Cathedral and St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, and others. Works include many collections and single pieces for organ as well as many for solo piano, piano 4 hands, and two pianos. Her major chamber works include a piano quartet, string quartet, two piano trios, and sonatas and suites for flute, violin, cello, and piano as well as settings of the psalms for organ with other instruments. Diemer has written many choral works as well. She has written numerous hymns, several of which appear in church hymnals. Her songs number in the dozens, using texts by many contemporary and early poets including Walt Whitman, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, Alice Meynell, Thomas Campion, Shakespeare, John Donne, her sister Dorothy Diemer Hendry, Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, and many others. Diemer's compositional style over the years has varied from tonal to atonal, from traditional to experimental. She has written works for non-professional and professional performers, originally under the "Gebrauchsmusik" philosophy, but has produced many works, particularly for keyboard, that are difficult and challenging. The latter category includes her "Fantasy" for piano; Seven Etudes for piano; Homage to Cowell, Cage, Crumb, and Czerny for two pianos; Variations for Piano Four Hands (Homage to Ravel, Schoenberg, and May Aufderheide); Four Biblical Settings for organ, Concerto for Organ ("Alaska"); and many psalm setting collections. The totally serial "Declarations" for organ (1973) contrasts to the more tonal 2013 concerto for violin and orchestra "Summer Day". Her work in the electronic field during her years on the faculty of the University of California influenced a number of works including her Toccata for piano that has a number of performances on YouTube.
- Age: 97
- Birthplace: Kansas City, Missouri
David Lang (born January 8, 1957) is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance. He was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.- Age: 68
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
Johann Sebastian Paetsch
Johann Sebastian Paetsch (born in Colorado Springs, U.S. on April 11, 1964) is an American cellist and musician.- Age: 60
- Birthplace: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Daniel Asia
Daniel Asia (born June 27, 1953) is an American composer. He was born in Seattle, Washington, in the United States of America.- Age: 71
- Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
Wang Jian
Jian Wang began to study the cello with his father when he was four. At the age of ten, while a student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he was featured in the celebrated documentary film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. Mr. Stern's encouragement and support paved the way for him to go to the United States and in 1985 he entered the Yale School of Music under a special programme where he studied with the renowned cellist Aldo Parisot. After graduating from Yale in 1988, he entered with full scholarship Juilliard School. Jian Wang has performed with many of the worlds leading orchestras, including Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, Chicago and Boston Symphonies, London Symphony, the Halle, the BBC orchestras, Zurich Tonhalle, Gothenburg Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia, La Scala, Mahler Chamber, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Czech Philhamonic, and NHK Symphony. These concerts have been with many of the greatest conductors, such as Abbado, Sawallisch, Jarvi, Chailly, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Chung, Gilbert, Van Zweden and Gustavo Dudamel. As a jury member, Jian Wang has judged many of the most important competitions, including the Tchaikovsky cello competition, the Queen Elizabeth cello competition, the Isaac Stern violin competition and the Nielsen violin competition. Jian Wang has made many recordings, his latest releases being the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Sydney Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy. He has also recorded an album of short pieces for Cello and Guitar titled Reverie, the complete Bach Cello Suites and a Baroque Album with the Camerata Salzburg, Brahms Double Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado and Gil Shaham, the Haydn Concerti with the Gulbenkian Orchestra under Muhai Tang, Messiaens Quartet for the End of Time (with Myung-Whun Chung, Gil Shaham and Paul Meyer) and Brahms, Mozart and Schumann chamber music with Pires and Dumay. His instrument is graciously loaned to him by the family of the late Mr. Sau-Wing Lam.- Age: 57
- Birthplace: China
Lori Laitman
Described by Fanfare Magazine as “one of the most talented and intriguing of living composers,” Lori Laitman has composed multiple operas and choral works, and over 250 songs, setting texts by classical and contemporary poets (including those who perished in the Holocaust). Her music is widely performed, internationally and throughout the United States, and has generated substantial critical acclaim. The Journal of Singing wrote “It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music.” Opera Colorado presented the professional World Premiere of Laitman's opera The Scarlet Letter in May 2016. Laura Claycomb, Dominic Armstrong and Malcolm MacKenzie starred in a production directed by Beth Greenberg and conducted by Ari Pelto. The libretto, based on the Hawthorne classic, is by Colorado's former Poet Laureate, David Mason. Huffington Post ran an interview with Laitman: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-dormady-eisenberg/lori-laitman-talks-about_b_9737014.html, and the May 2016 issue of Opera News had a feature about Laitman and The Scarlet Letter. Naxos released the CD in Aug. 2017. Gramophone wrote: "The first thing that leaps into one's ears is the sheer beauty of the music. Laitman has devoted much of her career to the art song, and her ability to meld words with lyrical, often soaring lines is on abundant display in her opera." Laitman and Mason also collaborated on Vedem, a Holocaust oratorio commissioned by Music of Remembrance, and are currently developing the opera Ludlow, based on Mason's award-winning verse novel about the 1914 Colorado mining town disaster. The Three Feathers, Laitman's children's opera with librettist Dana Gioia, is based on a Grimm's fairy tale and was commissioned by the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech. The work premiered in conjunction with VA Tech, Opera Roanoke and the Blacksburg Children's Chorale in Oct. 2015 in a production directed by Greenberg and conducted by Scott Williamson. Huffington Post ran a feature on the opera: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-dormady-eisenberg/lori-laitman-and-dana-gio_b_5982126.html.The children's outreach version, which is condensed to under an hour, was premiered by Florida State University in February 2016. Seattle Opera commissioned a 5 voice/piano abridged version to premiere in the Seattle schools from January through June 2018. "Uncovered" is Laitman's opera with Leah Lax, based on Leah's memoir. It was a 2018 finalist for the Domenic J. Pelliccioti Opera Composition Prize. Laitman has received numerous prestigious commissions, including from Opera America, Opera Colorado, Washington Master Chorale, Wolfgang Holzmair and Music of Remembrance. She received a 2015 Centennial Commission from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with Music Director Marin Alsop, for an orchestral piece to celebrate the BSO's 100th anniversary. The work, entitled Unsung, premiered in September 2016. Laitman's commission from the Howard Hansen Institute for American Music at the Eastman School and the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women's Leadership produced "Are Women People?" — and the piece for SATB vocal quartet and piano 4 hands, used texts by Alice Duer Miller, Susan B. Anthony and also set the 19th Amendment of the Constitution. The work premiered at Eastman School of Music in March 2017. A magna cum laude Yale graduate with an MM from Yale's School of Music, Laitman was featured on Thomas Hampson’s Song of America radio series and website and in The Grove Dictionary of American Music. The Yale School of Music presented her with the Ian Mininberg Distinguished Service Award at Yale Commencement on May 21, 2018. For more information, please visit www.artsongs.com.- Age: 70
Reena Esmail
Reena Esmail (born 11 February 1983) is an American pianist and composer.- Age: 41
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Daniel Kellogg
ComposerDaniel Kellogg may refer to: Daniel Kellogg (composer) (born 1976), American composer Daniel Kellogg (judge) (1791–1875), American judge in Vermont Daniel Kellogg (settler) (1630–1688), founding settler of Norwalk, Connecticut- Age: 49
- Birthplace: Wilton
Gisele Ben-Dor
ConductorGisele Ben-Dor is an American Israeli orchestra conductor of Uruguayan origin.- Age: 69
- Birthplace: Uruguay
Henrietta Yurchenko
Henrietta Yurchenco was an American ethnomusicologist, folklorist, radio producer, and radio host. She studied piano at Yale School of Music. She recorded traditional music in Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, and Morocco. She also worked at WNYC and taught at the City College of New York. She married the painter Basil Yurchenco and knew Alan Lomax and Pete Seeger. She lived in Manhattan, New York, and died there, from lung failure, at the age of 91.- Age: Dec. at 91 (1916-2007)
Dorothy Bishop
Dorothy Bishop is an American variety entertainer, singer and comedian from New York City who is best known for her musical parodies of Sarah Palin. She was born in Atlanta, United States, and received her undergraduate degree from the Yale School of Music. She earned her Master of Music degree from Converse College. Her Off-Broadway credits include "The Sarah Palin Musical Spectacular" and "The Sarah Palin Election Day Spectacular" at the Laurie Beechman Theater in New York City. Bishop is also known for her video parodies including "Going Rogue" and "The Ballad of Sarah Palin" with Lady Bunny. She also is known for her cheeky classical crossover show "Viva la Diva," in which she celebrates the world's most beloved divas, from opera to pop. The 2008 debut of "Viva la Diva" at New York's Zipper Theater won a positive review from Gay City News: "One could almost imagine Bishop as the artistic love child of Eleanor Steber and Bette Midler conceived at the Continental Baths sometime between either diva's appearance there in the early '70s.... Vocally, the 'poperatic' soprano is able to sing scat, belt, and go from chesty growling to high coloratura, jumping registers and genres with the facility of the late Evel Knievel vaulting a pyre of burning cars."Bishop has a classical background in opera and toured with Faye Dunaway in the first Broadway national tour of Terrence McNally's Tony Award winning play, Master Class. She has performed in such renowned New York venues as Carnegie Hall, Joe's Pub, Zipper Theatre and Town Hall. Bishop was a nationally televised finalist on the fourth season of America's Got Talent on NBC. She was a co-presenter for the "Hookies" with Leslie Jordan, and has been a guest on the Robin Byrd Show.Garth Neustadter
Film Score ComposerGarth Neustadter (born May 4, 1986 in Green Bay, Wisconsin) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist.- Age: 38
- Birthplace: Green Bay, Wisconsin
